tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-324243822014-10-28T08:36:12.804-04:00La Contra RevoluciónOculto en mi pecho bravo
La pena que me lo hiere:
El hijo de un pueblo esclavo
Vive por él, calla y muere.Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.comBlogger943125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-66884708963314564512014-01-01T08:00:00.000-05:002013-12-30T15:31:42.249-05:00Grape Anesthesia<div align="justify">So I called up the old man and asked him if he ate his grapes.<br /><br />He did. My mom put them in sandwich bags. Why didn’t I think of that?<br /><br />And so I asked him “What where you doing 54 years ago?” and he said “Probably eating my last grape.”<br /><br />The old man is half existentialist, half cynic and half comedian. In Cuban you can be medio anything. In fact, four medios add up to a peseta.<br /><br />So I said “Seriously, What where you doing fifty years ago when Batista was leaving Cuba”<br /><br />And he said: “Seriously, We had no idea. I was probably eating the last grape”<br /><br />And I thought abut it as I saw all the people partying on TV and heard the distant music of a neighbor's party.<br /><br />The world as we know it could be changing as we sip our champagne and eat our last grape and even with the instantaneous communications of today’s world, we wouldn’t know it.<br /><br />So I imagined that New Year’s Eve in 1958 and all the hard partying, dancing Cubans sipping Cidra and chomping on grapes totally unaware that the island they were floating on was about to be swallowed up in a whirlpool of change.<br /><br />And little did those that knew what was about to happen imagine that 54 years later the island would still be sinking into that swirling, bottomless abyss.<br /><br />The inevitable yearly visit of my asterisk-my cross-the moment where I realize that the New Year celebration is also the anniversary of the day that freedom died-had arrived,<br /><br />And the second glass of champagne became not a toast but a bitter grape anesthesia.</div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-28128350759926198222013-12-31T08:00:00.000-05:002013-12-31T08:00:09.993-05:00Happy New Year*.<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_kHwrh2oZgmQ/R3zupo2vMdI/AAAAAAAAADw/FNieGD6igpk/Mexico2007_002.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286051577351729362" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SVvT5yRxcNI/AAAAAAAACAY/ZH2cCpiS6Ac/s400/Mexico2007_002.jpg" style="display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br /><div align="justify">For me, New Years has always been a celebration with an asterisk-Happy New Year*.<br /><br />The New Year brings with it the promise of renewal and the hope of better days to come. Unfortunately, for me and all freedom loving Cubans, it also marks the day that we lost our freedom-the asterisk.<br /><br />Since this January 1st marks the 52th year of the “revolution,” it means that many more of the generation that were young adults when Castro came to power did not live to see Cuba’s return to freedom. Come to think of it, that means that most Cubans alive today were born after the day of the asterisk.<br /><br />So, most of us that live on the hyphen have to rely on the ever dwindling generation of Cubans who new life in Cuba before the asterisk to tell us what it was like to live in Cuba when life there was normal. And, I’m sorry, but living under the oppression, indoctrination and rationing that came with the totalitarian regime of Fidel Castro is anything but normal.<br /><br />When I was a child, I used to listen in amazement of the stories that the adults told of how things were like before Castro. I could not conceive of being able to travel abroad and come back to Cuba without permission or going to the bodega and buy whatever you had money for without a ration book.<br /><br />I do have a point.<br /><br />I clearly remember one New Years Eve that my mother and grandmother were fussing over grapes. Yes, grapes. You see Cubans have a tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight for good luck. I think that’s a carryover from the Spaniards, bless them.<br /><br />Anyway, on that particular New Years, there we no grapes to be found and my grandmother was not happy with Fidel. And when I asked her what the big deal with the grapes was, she said it was bad luck if you didn’t eat the 12 grapes. She told me how before Fidel the whole family would get together and have a party and I would ask her about all the stuff they ate and drank and it all sounded like a fairy tale to me.<br /><br />S o that New Years Eve was the first of many without grapes which was ok with me since getting force fed those 12 grapes at midnight took all the fun out of getting to stay up late. Later on though, my superstitions got the best of me and I started to worry about what horrible bad luck would befall my family if we didn’t eat our 12 grapes at midnight. Fidel would never leave, (that proved to be a well founded fear), or we would never get our exit.<br /><br />I was sure that every obstacle and struggle our family endured in the next few months was due to not eating the 12 blessed grapes. Sometime in February or March, I must have professed my “grape theory” to my father. He proceeded to smack me in the head with a classic Cuban father cocotaso and to tell me not be a comemierda. ( Not having a comemierda for a son ranks high in the Cuban father’s hierarchy of priorities) And he proceeded to explain to me his Castro theory the way only a Cuban father could. He explained that we could have each eaten a truckload of grapes and other than the ensuing cagalera, it would hot have made a bit of difference because all of the problems were caused by Castro. That’s the “No Castro, No Problem” model which admitedly held a lot more water than my childishly superstitious “grape theory”<br /><br />I’ve eaten my 12 grapes every year since coming into the US. Even when I’ve gone to a party where there are no grapes for the midnight tradition, I’ve had them waiting for me when I got home. I tried taking them in my coat pocket one year, but that’s a another messy post.<br /><br />I called the old man to see if he had his 12 grapes ready and he said they were taking them to their New Years eve party. I told him not to take them in his pocket. He told me not to be a comemierda. He still worries about me.<br /><br />So eat 12 grapes at midnight for good luck or just because you can and raise you glass to celebrate this Happy New Year* and hope that next year it will be just a plain ‘ol Happy New Year.<br /><br />Happy New Year*</div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-44343582469567827162011-09-08T07:58:00.000-04:002011-09-08T11:19:58.213-04:00Chachita<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SMUUY1KdSNI/AAAAAAAABfA/KsMTVQl6-vY/s1600-h/15.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243619757963167954" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SMUUY1KdSNI/AAAAAAAABfA/KsMTVQl6-vY/s400/15.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/RuNEj2ROGsI/AAAAAAAABJk/JuB3P2sT5PE/s1600-h/15.jpg"></a>Whether you call her La Virgensita. La Santisima, Nuestra Senora de la Caridad, La Caridad del Cobre or just "Cachita"-because only Cubans would have a nickname for their patron saint- or Ochun, today is her day. </div><br /><br /><div><br />And I got me one of those big old candles with her likeness on it and I'm going to light it right now and join the millions of Cubans <a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/RuNE0WROGtI/AAAAAAAABJs/wHRHgARh9qM/s1600-h/ochun_amarilla.jpg"></a>that today pray that, just like she saved those three Cubans from the storm so long ago, that she protect our fellow Cubans from the Hurricane that is battering the island today. And that once the clouds begin to clear that the light of freedom shines brightly to every corner of our enslaved island.</div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-76065117935400137642010-09-21T17:30:00.001-04:002010-09-22T08:49:48.698-04:00Multiple Choice<div align="justify">I’m probably the only Volvo-driving, France-loving , latte-sucking, tofu-chomping holistic-wacko, neurotic vegan weenie anti-Castro Cuban blogger. Maybe not, I prefer café con leche to latte.<br /><br />As a Democrat, I have philosophical differences on the size and scope of government with most of my fellow Cuban bloggers. But we do agree that in civil, economic and political life should all be based on free exchange of ideas.<br /><br />A government by the people and for the people can be a proactive and positive force in society.<br /><br />We all know what happens when government isn’t for the people.<br /><br />In recent years, government has grown so that it seems that it doesn’t exist for the governed but for the governors. The governed have become the masses to be lead to wherever the governing class sees fit.<br /><br />And that is tyranny.<br /><br />Side-stepping the democratic process in order to exercise a party’s political will against the will of the people as was done when the National Healthcare bill was passed is not government for the people. It is government in spite of the people.<br /><br />And in spite of the out of control governing class dictating how we live our lives, I figured the “masses” had pretty much given up and were more concerned with Dancing With the Stars and American Idol than with their elected officials<br /><br />Lo and behold, though, came the tea party. Out of nowhere. And they are mocked, even by the sitting president, as “tea baggers.” Sad.<br /><br />And I’m watching the news last night and hear the very same President <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/20/obama-to-tea-party-identi_n_731770.html">say</a>:<br /><br /></div><blockquote>"So the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify, specifically, what would you do?" he added. "It's not enough just to say get control of spending. I think it's important for you to say, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits or I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits or I'm willing to see these taxes go up. What you can't do, which is what I've been hearing a lot from the other side, is we're going to control government spending, we're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts, and that magically somehow things are going to work. Now, some of these are very difficult choices." </blockquote><div align="justify"><br />Now, for starters, if you accept President Obama’s premise that’s it’s up to the citizens, because after all, the tea party is just that, a bunch of concerned citizens, why should it be their responsibility to come up with the $4 trillion he and the current congress has put us in the hole for? Isn’t that what elected leaders are for? to solve or problems? That’s like blaming the crime victim for the crime.<br /><br />But no, I do not accept his premise that it’s up to the tea partiers, or citizens, to come up with a plan to fix his mess.<br /><br />I don’t really think he President Obama gets it. I know he’s a constitutional professor and all, but really. The above quote, to me is mind boggling.<br /><br />In a democracy, we have elections. Elections are tests, multiple choice tests. A, B or C. They are not essay questions. </div><div align="justify"><br />If the law professor doesn’t realize this soon, the next few elections may very well turn out to be even simpler-a true and false test, yes or no. And the citizens will say no to his premise that its their responsibility to come up with solution for their leader’s messes and kick him and his like – minded elitists out.</div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-81585171098896739072010-09-14T13:21:00.003-04:002010-09-14T13:38:25.885-04:00TherapyI’ve pretty much given up reading “news” on Cuba. It pretty much all boils down to some “reporter” parroting the regime’s lies. This guy here, Marc Frank, apparently likes parroting the party line since before becoming Reuter’s man in Havana <a href="http://newsbusters.org/node/7022">he wrote</a> for the People’s Daily World, a Communist Party USA publication. Heh.<br /><br />Frankly, I didn’t realize that Frank had written <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4cd17af4-bf5e-11df-965a-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss">this piece</a> for the Financial Times that I linked into from Drudge, so I started reading and (screaming at my screen).<br /><br />So, as a therapeutic exercise, I have copied that article here along with my expletive deleted comments.<br /><br />I don’t feel better now.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Financial Times</span><br />AMERICAS<br /></strong>Economy &amp; Trade</p><p><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#000099;">Cuba to cut 500,000 from state payroll</span><br /></span><em><span style="color:#000099;">By Marc Frank in Havana</span></em></p><em><span style="color:#000099;"></span></em><p><br />Published: September 13 2010</p><p align="justify"><br /><br />Communist <a title="www.ft.com" href="http://www.ft.com/indepth/cuba">Cuba </a>will shift <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(shift?)</em></span>hundreds of thousands of state employees to the private sector <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(what private sector?)</em></span> in 2011 as the government prunes more than 500,000 workers from its payroll.</p><p align="justify"><br />The official trade union federation <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">(the regime)</span></em> said on Monday that eventually more than a million jobs would be cut. <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(Is it still going to be illegal not to have a job in Cuba?)</em></span></p><p align="justify"><br />“Job options will be increased and broadened with new forms of non-state employment, among them leasing land, co-operatives and self-employment absorbing hundreds of thousands of workers in the coming years,” <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(in the coming …years!…hmm…does the socialist paradise have unemployment insurance?)</em></span> the union statement said.</p><p align="justify"><br />According to a document circulating within the higher ranks of the Communist party in preparation for the “reorganisation of the labour force” announced on Monday, 465,000 non-state jobs would be created in 2011, of which some 250,000 would fall under the category of new licences for self-employment. <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">(ha I see the regime controlled “private sector”)</span></em></p><p align="justify"><br />Self-employment, begun in the 1990s, <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">(wow, Fidel invented self-employment in the 1990’s..wasn’t his mother self employed in the world’s oldest form of self employment?)</span></em> covers everything from family-run restaurants to car repair shops, construction and artisans. Non-state jobs included workers hired by the self-employed, ex-state employees such as taxi drivers who would move to a leasing arrangement, and employees of small state businesses that went over to a co-operative form of administration, said sources who have seen the plan. <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(sounds like a well centrally planned private sector)</em></span></p><span style="color:#3333ff;"><em><p align="justify"><br /></em></span>The plan represents the most important reform undertaken by President Raúl Castro since he <a title="www.ft.com" href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/39768ee4-6b06-11dd-b613-0000779fd18c,dwp_uuid=3d806e42-a627-11db-937f-0000779e2340.html">took over from his brother Fidel in early 2008</a>, and the biggest shift to private enterprise since all 58,000 small! businesses were nationalised in 1968<span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>.( in 1968 ?!?! 9 years after Fidel &amp; co. turned the place into a concentration camp? How about all the businesses confiscated from 1959 to 1968?!?!? BUT in one year they will create 250,000 jobs….hmmm….so between 1959 and 1968…never mind…in 1968, Cuban exiles owned more than 58,000 small businesses in the US)</em></span></p><p align="justify"><br />Raúl Castro has fostered discussion in the media <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">(lies)</span></em> and grassroots meetings <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(more lies)</em></span> on the problems afflicting the socialist economy, <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(an oxymoron)</em></span> but he has made mostly minor changes up till now. The exception has been agriculture, where Mr Castro has leased state lands to 100,000 farmers and loosened the state straitjacket on sale of farm inputs and produce. <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">(some private sector, they get to work the government’s land…more like the feudal sector, really)</span></em></p><em><span style="color:#3333ff;"><p align="justify"><br /></span></em>The government reported <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>( and I parrot without question)</em></span> more than 85 per cent of the Cuban labour force, or about 5m people, worked for the state at the close of 2009. There were 591,000 workers in the private sector, with most of those being farmers <span style="color:#3333ff;">(serfs)</span> and 143,000 self-employed. <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(slaves) </em></span>The massive layoff of 10 per cent of the state labour force is scheduled to begin in October and stretch through March. New licences for self-employment would be issued beginning in October , the sources said. </p><p align="justify"><br />Geographical limitations on self-employment and prohibitions on obtaining bank credits, doing business with state entities or hiring labour outside the family, would be eliminated. <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">(not to mention what criteria will be used to issue these licenses? Will Yoani Sanchez or Darsi Ferrer be issued licenses? Who needs to get bribed to get a “license”, Antonio Castro?....please!)</span></em></p><p align="justify"><br />Better accounting would be demanded of businesses, and the way they were taxed would be changed. As well as taxes on income, the self-employed would pay a sales tax and 25 per cent social security tax for themselves and each employee, the sources said, while co-operatives would pay a tax on profits and social security<span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>.(wonder if they’re issuing any licenses for tax attorneys?)</em></span></p><em><span style="color:#3333ff;"></span></em><p align="justify"><br />The state expected tax revenue from the self-employed to jump from 250m pesos ($9.4m) this year to about a billion pesos in 2011, the sources said. <span style="color:#3333ff;"><em>(or else…you don’t want to have to get audited by state security)</em></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#3333ff;"><em><br /></em></span><a href="http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/copyright">Copyright</a> The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. <a href="http://ftcorporate.ft.com/contact-us.html">Contact us</a> if you wish to print more to distribute to others.</p></blockquote>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-13121763804925023242010-05-11T12:03:00.004-04:002010-05-11T12:42:21.025-04:00Blue Movies<div align="justify">OK, so I don’t go to the movies.<br /><br />I haven’t been to a movie theater in years.<br /><br />For a while there, every time I went to the movies I would regret it. I’ve had the cell phone talker, the narrator, the chatter all sitting near me. Hell, I’ve even had the snorer and the soundtrack singer. So eventually I gave up and just wait for the movies to come out on DVD.<br /><br />This weekend a friend got “Avatar” in Blue Ray and invited me over. He takes pity on me because I still watch a 27 inch analog tube TV.<br /><br />Oh boy. Great effects. After a while you swear those cartoons are real.<br /><br />However…what about the plot?…unreal.<br /><br />After the movie was over, I proceeded to explain to everyone why they had just sat through communist propaganda. Laughter ensued.<br /><br />People just can’t believe that I just can’t sit there and enjoy a movie without looking for the subliminal red flags of communist propaganda. I don’t know, maybe I’m just gifted or cursed.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/S-mB7mpSY2I/AAAAAAAACHs/QoWA1_gxJpU/s1600/Avatar%2520Movie%2520image%2520Navi.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470046083404161890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 137px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/S-mB7mpSY2I/AAAAAAAACHs/QoWA1_gxJpU/s320/Avatar%2520Movie%2520image%2520Navi.jpg" border="0" /></a>Avatar, of course, pins the noble savages against the capitalist profit seeking military-industrial complex.<br /><br />The blue “aboriginals”, (really, red would have been more original), of course, live as one with Mother Nature in a communal egalitarian Utopia. They are so communal that they even connect to the planet, Pandora, and every living thing on it through some tentacle-like appendages. They are like “the Borg” only nicer.<br /><br />These folks don’t have material possessions, or clothes and they don’t need them because since they understand that they are part of the collective whole. All they need to do to be happy is to be one with each other. Awe.<br /><br />Their memories are collective. They are ruled by a wise old leader who has inherited his position. No need for elections or debate here. He makes all the decisions.<br /><br />In the Pandoran jungle Utopia, they are all equal and call each other brother or sister, depending on their genitals. And they refer to themselves as “The People.” (The People’s Republic of the Na’vi, anyone?)<br /><br />Now, of course, this sounds a lot like John Lennon’s candy coated communist manifesto, “Imagine,” except for the “no religion” part because Na’vi worship a tree or something. (not too sure on that). Maybe they should have been green instead of blue, but green or red people are not as stylish as blue people and the left is all about style.<br /><br />But it also sounds a lot like Castro’s idea of a perfect society. Or a leftist Hollywood wet drem. Oh wait, Castro is leftists Hollywood’s wet dream.<br /><br />And the answer to the question of whether I can enjoy a movie for “just” entertainment is yes.<br /><br />But, Avatar, is a movie with a message. It is a morality tale and as such you are supposed to “get something out of it.” And I did. A bunch of collective, communist propaganda.<br /><br />Really, I don’t know see how you can get anything else out of it. You have the individualists who are out for themselves on one side and the collectivists who sacrifice their individuality on the other and the whole point is to show the viewer how suppressing their individuality for the good of the whole is the way to roll.<br /><br />Unfortunately, us humans are not built to roll that way and the only way to make humans roll that way is for heads to roll because we have to be forced, or coerced …or brainwashed…err…educated by cool, friendly cartoon characters.<br /><br />God, isn’t that just what the evil capitalists do when they advertise? </div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-77517047330941355442010-05-06T12:28:00.003-04:002010-05-06T12:32:52.344-04:00And A Little Birdie Told Me...<div><br />I was a mischievous child. Always up to some secretive mischief.<br /><br />I thought I could get away with anything.<br /><br />A psychologists would probably say I was “Acting out,” but it was rebellion. Totalitarian society encourages small individual acts of rebellion, I think.<br /><br />And I was thinking about my “acting out” and I though of my grandmother, Ramona.<br /><br />That old woman loved me more than anything. And I knew it. And I would take advantage of it.<br /><br />I remember playing with the veins in her wrinkly hands. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. And I remember her telling me about all the bad things that I thought I had done secretly and I would ask her how she knew and I remember her telling me a little birdie told her and I would be furious at the little, big mouthed bird.<br /><br />And I think back in amazement of how such a young child would know about the evils and dangers of communism and know enough to keep his mouth shut yet he believed that some little bird was ratting him out. I guess it kind of made sense that in a place where everybody was ratting everybody else out, even their own family, and all the walls had ears that birdies would tell all. But, still, the cynicism mixed with innocence is mind-blowing in retrospect.<br /><br />And so I think of Ramona, and the little birdies that talk to her. They told her Fidel was a devil when they perched on his shoulder in that now infamous “sign”<br /><br />And I remember watching the tattle taling, gusano eating, chivato birds flying freely around while we were trapped in the world/s biggest bird cage. The birds, they were free. Free to fly to Florida and eat Ham and chew chiclets and play with Rosie.<br /><br />And I also remember the time I freed the “azulejos” by opening their cage door, but I don’t remember if I did it because I hated them because they told on me or because I wanted them to fly North. I just remember getting in trouble for it.<br /><br />And I was reading Yoani’s blog the other day and she had a post about a “<a href="http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=1675">Wild Beast</a>” and it was about “Twitter”. Twitter’s logo is a blue bird and the whole purpose of “tweeting” is to tell everybody what you’re doing,(sometimes to annoying detail).<br /><br />And Yoani was talking about how equipped with a cell phone, dissidents can tell a little blue birdie called “Twitter” what’s going on in the Cuban cage in “ 140 character fragments” so the little birdie can tell all<br /><br /></div><br /><blockquote>He didn’t know that our tweets travel to cyberspace through the rough sending of<br />text-only messages by way of cellphones. Nor could he imagine that instead of<br />ending up in the hands of a member of the British intelligence services, our<br />brief texts go to this blue bird that makes them fly through cyberspace.<br /></blockquote><br /><div><br />And I though of how the birdies are signing and a different tune and how its being heard all over the world…<br /><br />…a little birdie told me.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468195719208904818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 215px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 165px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/S-LvCO3CKHI/AAAAAAAACHc/F14C_Bt9OkE/s320/twitter-bird-2-300x300.png" border="0" /></div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-54850158496085645982010-04-19T19:55:00.002-04:002010-04-19T20:02:00.177-04:00And the hits keep coming...<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And so in the last post I explained why I find it offensive to call the tea party people “tea baggers”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But it gets much worse than that.</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now we have the president of the </span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">US</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> mocking concerned American citizens because they don’t share his world view.</span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Being a life long Democrat, I’m not all too thrilled about has happened to the Democratic party in the last 20 years, It has been high jacked by the left-over left of the sixties, by a bunch of now over the hill clueless hippies.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So I was, unlike some of my friends, a bit pleased to see that someone was making an attempt to lure the president back from the left edge of radical foreign policy by dangling some green in front of him.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Of course, I’m talking about the Estefans.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In reality, politics is about influence and influence is about money and Obama proved that it’s pretty easy to buy his influence even if it’s by one of the only minorities that don’t march lock and step with the Democratic party-The Cubans.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sorry, I’m not a fan of one-party systems.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now, in a candy coated way, the ever “diplomatic” and “politically correct” Gloria </span><a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/16/1582647/gloria-estefans-speech-at-fundraiser.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">said</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> as much:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; "></span></p><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The beauty of this amazing nation is that anything is possible! Even hosting a very political evening to get the “ear” of my President</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />And in a not so diplomatic way, Estefan warned the president that the considerable sum she helped raise for his party came with some strings attached by quoting </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(26, 39, 50); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Lawrence J. Peter</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></o:p></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">“Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.”</span></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, while he was in </span><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Miami</span></st1:place></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the president decided to do to the American people the very thing that the Estefans were lobbying him to put pressure on the Castro regime to stop doing to the Cuban people.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">See, the Castros, through their sate – run media ridicule and mock any opposition in order to marginalize it and that is exactly what president Obama did. During the fundraiser, the president </span><a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/15/v-fullstory/1582146/in-florida-obama-finds-give-and.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">had this to say</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> about the tea partiers who were protesting on tax day:</span></span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></o:p></span></p><blockquote> `You'd think they would be saying thank you,''</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; ">As far as I know past presidents have always shrugged off protesters and critics rather than to try to mock and ridicule them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> At least he didn’t call them tea baggers or terrorists.</span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The latter fell to former president Bill Clinton who </span><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/16/clinton-warns-tea-party-anger-incite-right-wing-extremism/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">warned</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> that those angry tea partiers could incite home grown terror a la </span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Oklahoma City</span></st1:city></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> bombing:</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; "><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></span></span></span></o:p></span></p><blockquote><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"But when you get mad, sometimes you wind up producing exactly the reverse result of what you say you are for."</span></span></span></blockquote><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Sure... Timothy McVeigh was home watching “I Love Lucy” re-runs and tuned into some anti-Clinton protest on TV and decided to kill a bunch a people.</span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If you listen to these two presidents, you get the impression that they would have sided with the tax loving King George instead of with the American patriots.</span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; ">But that’s not the point. One can shrug off their point of view.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; ">It’s much harder to understand why these two can’t just shrug of the respectful and sincere criticism of many taxpayers who don’t agree with them and try to blame the people rather than realize that ultimately, in a democracy it is the people who choose who's to blame.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span> <br /></span></p>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-25841018937952401202010-04-17T10:05:00.002-04:002010-04-17T10:11:37.671-04:00Shrugs<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I haven’t been writing lately. Frankly, the run-up to the 2008 election and the election of a President who thinks that the <a href="http://lacontrarevolucion.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-newspeak.html">US constitution is flawed</a> shook me to the core. The cult of then candidate and now president Obama’s personality, all hinging on vague concepts like hope and change and <a href="http://lacontrarevolucion.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-knew-it-looked-familiar.html">Marxist inspired posters</a> as well as the inability of the opposition to mount a coherent defense of the core American value of a constitutionally limited government, brought back such horrible memories of the Cuban tragedy, that I resorted to burying my head in the sand for over a year, <a href="http://lacontrarevolucion.blogspot.com/2007/03/playing-ostrich.html">playing ostrich</a>, barely sticking it out on occasion to mutter “I’ve seen this movie before.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p>At times, I’ve threatened, in desperate jest, to go back to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I tell my life partner that I already rode the runaway train of socialism down once and have no desire to do it again. At least <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> has already hit rock bottom.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And so here I am today, writing. Head out of the sand and squinting. Grimacing at all that my senses are taking in. Surrounded by an all too familiar ugly, foul smelling, painful reality that’s leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I was watching TV and they were talking about the tea party activists. Whatever. They wear t-shirts and hats, make signs, wave them at the TV cameras, pat themselves on the back and tell each other what great Americans they are and then they go home and nothing changes. A stupid waste of time, really. Kind of like going to a Star Trek convention.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And they were referring to these folks as “tea baggers.” Apparently this is offensive.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Sheesh! Everyone is way too sensitive these days.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Then, I read on a blog that “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teabagging">tea bagging</a>” was a “sexually” offensive epithet and Hah! that made me interested enough to Google “tea bagger” on my miraculous 3G smart phone and Oh My God!, or OMG in 2010 text lingo. Who knew?!? I certainly didn’t. Wow, right there on Wikipedia! It takes a lot to make this old “gusano” blush.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Oh, pardon my spanglish. Lemme esplain what a <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>gusano is…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Ah yes, “gusano”, Spanish for worm, a lowly, belly crawling creature that feeds off rotting carcasses and refuse. That’s what I was called in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> when I was a kid. That’s what all of us who didn’t think Fidel Castro had all the answers or was the only one with the right to ask questions were called.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I mean if you didn’t think that government, Fidel’s or Batista’s or Pepito’s, could abolish the constitution, or had the right to force you to do things you didn’t want to do, like “volunteer”, or that it had no right to take your property and give it to someone else, you were a “gusano.” You were a “counter revolutionary”- against the party, against Fidel. So you were ridiculed<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and shamed with an insulting moniker made to conjure up a disgusting image...a “gusano.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Some of “gusanos” were lucky enough to escape Castro’s totalitarian amusement park to a place where you could, if you wanted, wear funny t-shirts and hats and wave signs that mostly say hooray for our side and we cherished this more than anyone will ever know. Being allowed to do so, really, even in this day and age, is a rare gift…an unalienable gift endowed by our creator…that’s denied to so many.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And the best thing about this country was that its constitution was so respected that whenever harmless kooks carrying signs and screaming at the tops of their lungs for whatever reason got together and demonstrated, everyone just shrugged.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Imagine that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Some nut standing in the middle of the street screaming the total opposite of what you believe in and you just shrug.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Amazing!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And why? because of the flawed, according to our president, piece of a paper that founded our government.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Really amazing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And so I shrugged, starting in November of last year. Because I believe in the constitution and its “negative powers.” I believe in elections.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">But when I see <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/30/dan-gainor-tea-party-liberal-media-attacks/">celebrities, folks in the media and some elected officials</a> calling these tea party nuts an offensive name like “tea bagger” just because they’re carrying signs and wearing funny t-shirts and hats and patting themselves on the back for being patriots. Damn-it it breaks my heart because it hits way too close to home for this old “gusano.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">These folks aren’t doing anything more than a Trekie does at a Star Trek convention, really. Then, they go home and pay their taxes. I mean, most people shrug off the Trekies (ok some do give understandably quizzical looks), but these tea party folks get called names-a hideous, insulting, sexually charged epithet just because they have a different concept of the role of government.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And really, that you just can’t shrug off.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><br /></p>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-48453334679005379212009-05-18T12:54:00.003-04:002009-05-18T13:10:46.102-04:00Nostalgia...<div align="left">Para Ziva:<br /><br />Eres mas cubana que una palma real.<br /><br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4M2MzOWfpbY&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4M2MzOWfpbY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /></div><div align="center"><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;">Olé!<br /><br />Hubo un lugar<br />Donde los árboles lloran<br />Y yo no he parado de llorar<br /><br />Po’ ti seré<br />Eterno maaa-nan-tial<br /><br />Cuba linda de mi vi’a<br />Cuba linda siempre la recordaré<br />Yo quisiera verte ahora<br />Como la primera vez<br /><br />Cuba linda de mi vi’a<br />Cuba linda siempre la recordaré<br /><br />¡Ay!<br />Cuba linda de mi vi’a<br />Cuba linda siempre la recordaré<br /><br />Flor de mayo, Sevillana<br />Flor de mayo que a mi patria levantó<br />Yo quisiera verte ahora<br />Como la primera vez<br /><br />Flor de mayo, Sevillana<br />Flor de mayo que a mi patria levantó<br /><br />¡Ay! Flor de mayo, Sevillana<br />Flor de mayo que a mi patria levantó<br />¡Éje!<br /><br />Coro: Te recordaremos<br />Aunque me cueste morir<br /><br />El Cigala: A mi me gustaría una mañana<br />Después del café bebí ’o<br />Pasearme por La Habana<br />Con mi cigarro encendi’o<br /><br />Coro: Te recordaremos<br />Aunque me cueste morir<br /><br />El Cigala: Primita oh Dios te vea<br />Primita oh Dios te vea<br />Rodando de mano en mano<br />Que como la ¿****?<br /><br />Coro: Te recordaremos<br />Aunque me cueste morir<br /><br />El Cigala: A mi me gustaría una mañana<br />Después del café bebí ’o<br />De pasearme por La Habana<br />Con mi cigarro encendi’o<br /><br />Coro: Te recordaremos<br />Aunque me cueste morir<br /><br />El Cigala: Lararararaaaai<br />Larararararaaalai<br /><br />(piano solo)<br /><br />Lararalalalala<br />Laralaaa </span></div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-73043793558644600242009-02-01T09:30:00.002-05:002009-02-01T09:33:59.473-05:00Die Already!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SYWyyv8TeSI/AAAAAAAACGs/0UcEjkUgAVg/s1600-h/die-already.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SYWyyv8TeSI/AAAAAAAACGs/0UcEjkUgAVg/s400/die-already.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297837121603860770" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="97%"><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><div id="pageContainer" class="storyDetail"><div id="col2"><div class="content printable"><div id="wide"><h2 id="storyTitle">Die Already! The Miami Herald needs the money.</h2><h2 id="storyTitle"><br /></h2><h2 id="storyTitle"><a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/issues_ideas/story/880787.html">As Fidel rumors swirl, our newsroom plan awaits</a></h2><div class="byline"></div><blockquote><div class="byline">BY MANNY GARCIA</div><div id="storyBody"><em>Manny Garcia is The Miami Herald's Senior Editor/News.</em><p>At Miami Herald Media Company, Fidel Castro is the journalistic equivalent of a kidney stone -- a constant pain who never seems to go away, and you pray that he passes, soon.</p><p>Castro is part of our collective newsroom psyche, even outside One Herald Plaza.</p><p>You could be on an African safari when Fidel dies and you gotta come home. Publisher's orders.</p><p>Everywhere I travel, I take ''the Cuba plan,'' a three-ring binder with every possible scenario for when Fidel dies. Calling-tree diagrams. Bank accounts. Satellite phones. Fixers. Fast boats.</p><p>The Cuba plan went on a Mediterranean cruise with my family. It's been to Barcelona, Rome, Vancouver, Disney World -- even down North Carolina's Nanthahala River -- safely tucked in a waterproof bag while my son and I rafted.</p><p>Sad, huh?</p><p>You've gotta understand that the Cadaver-in-Chief is our story and biggest challenge. The Cuban government will not give us a journalist's visa to report from there, claiming we are the exile's lapdogs, which is garbage. Meanwhile, some exiles call us Granma North.</p><p>So we sneak reporters into Cuba to write about what's going on. We don't publish their bylines because it's dangerous, and you run the risk of getting caught and hassled by the authorities.</p><p>While that's going on, we sit here at Mother Herald and prepare some more for the Big Day.</p><p>We sit in meetings, long meetings, going over possible stories. Phrasing. Tone. Length. We got at least five different versions of Fidel's obit, pegged to the time of day or night he dies. We built a Web page for the big day -- dubbed the `Holy (bleep) page.</p><p>We've got Castro plans in English and Spanish, as well as every conceivable photo of Fidel: young, old, fatigue-clad, pajama-clad, vegetative.</p><p>We stare at his tinted eyebrows. You've seen them -- a hue possibly achieved only using <em>abuela</em>'s Roux Fanci-Full rinse No. 52, Black Rage.</p><p>So we keep training and waiting for him to die. You've heard that joke where Fidel outlives us all?</p><p>Well, he's outlived journos involved in cobbling out the earliest Cuba plans. Others quit, retired or just figured they should enjoy life away from the Cuba plan.</p><p>(On a positive note, Fidel was a great recruiting tool. ''Where would you rather be when Castro dies?'' It worked!)</p><p>But we hang in there.</p><p><strong>WORD OF MOUTH</strong></p><p>On a recent night, the rumor mill kicked in full-throttle -- Fidel had had a heart attack. He'd had a stroke. He's in a coma. Fifo is dead.</p><p>My friends call. My relatives call.</p><p>``<em>Por fin se murió el hijo de la gran [prostituta]?</em>''</p><p>``Did the son of the great [prostitute] finally die?''</p><p>I've never understood the ''great'' part of that phrase.</p><p>No, Fidel's apparently alive and in yet another track suit and slippers. The Cuban government releases a photo of Fidel, this time with Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is holding his hand.</p><p>We stare at the photo. He looks no different from an <em>abuelo</em> you'd see at Hialeah Hospital wearing the silk pajamas his <em>nietos</em> got him at the Pembroke Lakes Mall -- except that this <em>abuelo</em> is a dictator.</p><p>'It's a friggin' wax dummy.''</p><p>``No man, he's looking better.''</p><p>``Please, it's Photoshopped! He's dead.''</p><p><strong>FALSE ALARM</strong></p><p>The truth is we don't know squat. So we polish up the Cuba plan some more, send people to Cuba, call State Department sources who know even less than we do. At all times, we try to act super smart and prepared for Anders Gyllenhaal, our executive editor, who asks pointed questions.</p><p>``Is he dead?''</p><p>Not too long ago, Juan Tamayo, a long-suffering keeper of the Cuba plan, sat in a room with us to see if we needed to scale back our ambitious Cuba plan.</p><p>Fidel had refused to suddenly die -- a wonderful scenario, in a journalistic sense, setting the stage for a fat Special Edition that could be on the streets within hours.</p><p>You felt deflated. The kidney stone remained lodged. The old bastard would find a way to hurt even our single-copy sales on his way to Hades.</p></div></blockquote><div id="storyBody"><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-14787178463046231982009-01-31T17:55:00.009-05:002009-01-31T18:12:58.511-05:00Every Picture Tells A Story, Don’t It?<p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Fidel’s revolution has always been about images. The picture perfect dictatorship.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">And that image has been successfully sold to the unsuspecting consumers in the market for a Utopia for half a century.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Fidel’s one and only talent has been to lie and sell slavery as revolutionary martyrdom-Patria o Muerte. He was able to tap into the Cuban unconscious and push all the right emotional buttons with symbols. The beards and crucifixes of the early revolution, the fatigues, four hour speeches, the Korda Che picture on t-shirts and cigars later and now the tracksuit and blog have all been part of the symbolic look of his revolution’s marketing campaign.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Castro’s 50 year propaganda campaign has managed to convince the world that even after 50 years <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> is still undergoing a revolution that was over on Jan 8 1959. The world’s longest going out of business sale.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Ironically, this week that picture perfect dictatorship wasn’t exactly all that picture perfect thanks to a couple of pictures.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Fist off, Newspapers in <a href="http://www.perfil.com/contenidos/2009/01/24/noticia_0023.html">Argentina</a> and <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/2009/01/29/opi_art_runrunes_1246464.shtml">Venezuela</a> as well as most of <a href="http://www.lanuevacuba.com/2009/Ene/notic-09-01-3000.htm">Miami</a> were questioning the authenticity of the picture that showed the Argentine president next to a “rejuvenated” and some would say a fake Castro. Yawn.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297595574502212018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 281px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SYTXG23iwbI/AAAAAAAACGM/hVR_DXYEB_4/s400/PRE_analisis_foto_Fidel.jpg_874778526.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">But, I did show the high resolution digital photograph to a friend who uses photoshop and other software to legitimately “fix” photographs. I also told her the story of how a Cuban official “handed” the photo to the Argentine in public. When she finished laughing-she swore she wasn’t laughing at me and my <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> obsession-she said that the high resolution digital image was that of a scan. So if someone took a digital photo, doctored it, printed it than scanned into a high resolution image, unless they were really bad at “photoshopping” the image, she couldn’t tell if it had been altered. And she said, what difference does it make, anyway? </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">OK, so it caused me the price of a latte to find out what I already knew.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The other not so perfect picture that caused a stir, especially on the island, according to Yoani Sanchez, was the Cuban Flag Picture in Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">In it, the white star on the Cuban flag was black. Doesn’t sound like a big deal in a country that’s been stuck in 1959 since well, 1959. But it was. It was such a big deal, The next day Granma printed an explanation. A translated <a href="http://desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=412">Yoani</a> comments:</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297596194894002610" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 353px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SYTXq-AeObI/AAAAAAAACGU/jijexndYX64/s400/bandera-granma.jpg" border="0" /></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">There are errors that have much greater symbolic weight than hundreds of successes. Evasive stars and readers who interpret their escape; Islands that live dependent on prophesies and superstitions; days to remember the national hero and flags that dare to show what so many people keep silent about.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">And all while the substitute dictator, who like the evasive star had left the scene of the crime and was in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Cuba/idUSLS74692920090129">Moscow</a> drinking Vodka, eating boar fat, (yuk), and nostalgically reliving the glory days of the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">USSR</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297597559109828242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 307px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/SYTY6YG3vpI/AAAAAAAACGc/PLqPEYy8huw/s400/xin_4720106301727812190969.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Every picture tells a story, don’t it?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </p>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-32039294590935784832009-01-28T20:33:00.001-05:002009-01-28T20:33:55.684-05:00CatholicVote.org<a href=http://www.catholicvote.com/>CatholicVote.org</a><br /><br />Posted using <a href="http://sharethis.com">ShareThis</a>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-69482956677291993272009-01-24T14:54:00.003-05:002009-01-24T15:02:06.040-05:00Even In Hindsight, Future Uncertain<div style="text-align: justify;">Unlike <a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/index.php?tpl=design/especiales.tpl.html&amp;newsid_obj_id=13827">others</a>, I didn’t get a chance to “reflect” on the recent “changes” in the world this week.<br /></div><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p>Maybe that was a good thing because now I can do so with the benefit of hindsight.</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But even looking back, things are a bit blurry and hard to make out in the distance. Hindsight is not always 20-20.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">We started the week expecting the big announcement after the inauguration.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Did we get it?<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I had a <a href="http://lacontrarevolucion.blogspot.com/2009/01/rerun.html">feeling</a> that the latest rumors about the demise of Fidel, was the latest setup by the regime and that they were going to prop up the tracksuit tyrant for yet another gruesomely uncomfortable photo op. I figured they would have posed him next to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet because of her red pedigree, but in hindsight, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, made more sense because of her <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/world/americas/15venez.html?_r=1">bought and paid for</a>- one $800k suitcase at a time-lack of pedigree.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The speculations all started with Chavez shooting of his mouth by delivering a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/cuba/4219222/Fidel-Castro-unlikely-to-be-seen-in-public-again.html">eulogy</a> for Fidel on his un-real(ity) TV show.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Chavez also compared Obama’s <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/19/chavez-likens-obamas-stench-bushs/">scent</a> to that of Mr. Danger. And as repulsive and un-masculine as it is to compare the scents of your male enemies, it does give an insight into <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Chavez’s very primal world. A world were where the big dogs mark their territory and he goes around sniffing the boundaries.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So, lo and behold, right after the inauguration, the brothers Castro decide to embrace President Obama, making Chavez the odd socialist new man out. Raúl wished President Obama luck and even <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5E57Ht_Oz6aUvha4i_xGwM_HbDgD95RNKL80">said</a> he “seemed like a good man.”<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Then, President Fernandez de Kirchner, announces to the world that even Fidel is caught up in the Obamania sweeping the world and that he <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481407,00.html">“believes”</a> in Obama, all stenches aside. She also dispels the rumors, started by Chavez, that Fidel has one foot in the grave.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Fidel” then gets reflexive in his blog and praises <a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/index.php?tpl=design/especiales.tpl.html&amp;newsid_obj_id=13827">the “11<sup>th</sup>” American President</a>, saying that “no one could doubt the sincerity of his words” and that President Obama is “the living symbol of the American dream.”<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Talk about a stench. Something smells fishy-very fishy.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">While I can see what Fidel sees in President Obama: a bit of himself, it is totally out of character for Fidel to talk about the American Dream.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Castro’s dream society is one where the individual is totally subjugated and the state, Castro, is omnipotent, His is the Nazi and Soviet dream, not the American Dream where individuals are free to pursue their own life, liberty and happiness. That is his nightmare, the<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>kryptonite to Che’s super new man, the holy water to his demon.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There was much talk of the announcement of Fidel’s death after President Obama’s inauguration.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I have no idea about Fidel’s health, but I doubt that Castro wrote this last reflection, where he embraces the embodiment of the American Dream.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Whoever wrote this reflection could be signaling the end of the revolution-which is like announcing the death of Fidel. Fidel is the revolution and the revolution was the antithesis to the American Dream.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In this online essay, Fidel has been cast aside as a an obstacle that “gets in the way of the comrades from the Party and the State as they are called to make constant decisions to tackle the objective difficulties derived from the world economic crisis.”<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They could very well have just announced the end of an epic 50 years of “struggle” and “resistance” to an idea by embracing its embodiment-<a href="http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/enero09/23_N_4.html">a truce in the “battle of ideas</a>.” Or do they sense that <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s dream has been forever changed by its embodiment?<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Time and hindsight will tell.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But it does seem that the regime has decided to embrace the embodiment of the American dream, President Obama, as the way to objectively tackle its economic difficulties. The embrace doesn’t have to be out of love, but in communist <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s jineterismo tradition, out of necessity-American credit, American tourists and American dollars. This “reflection” attributed to Fidel and the full court press campaign against the embargo by the regime’s sympathizers, apologists, fellow travelers and all round useful idiots are definite clues to its goal.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This can only be achieved by burying Fidel.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I think they just might have.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-39221039165420705472009-01-21T07:18:00.008-05:002009-01-24T09:43:10.584-05:00… And the Devil says :<span style="font-family:courier new;">Do you <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-15-obamapoll_N.htm">believe</a> in a God that satisfies<br />Do you <a href="http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200901201420.htm">believe</a> in a God that opens eyes<br />Do you <a href="http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?id=3991">believe</a> in a God that tells you lies<br />Or do you <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gh3HOPD2ujNfXplmi3mkFeVCm-nAD95ROP580">believe</a> in me?<br /><br />Do you <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/10/09/74-ceos-believe-obama-would-be-disastrous-nation">believe</a> in a God that brings you down<br />Do you <a href="http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2009/01/king-of-world.html">believe</a> in a God that wears a crown<br />Do you <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012002612.html">believe</a> in a God that makes you bow<br />Or do you <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5E57Ht_Oz6aUvha4i_xGwM_HbDgD95RNKL80">believe</a> in me?<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YHdoeiFB_Ro&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YHdoeiFB_Ro&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />..the leap of faith...Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-50804582210740708712009-01-16T18:34:00.000-05:002009-01-16T18:34:00.550-05:00An Arm, A Leg And A…<div align="justify">Freedom is expensive.<br /><br />Historically, it has been literarily been paid for with blood.<br /><br />Some would give an arm and a leg to be free and have.<br /><br />And some men in Cuba are willing to part with a piece of something that’s very dear and near to them in order to have the opportunity to join a very exclusive club and leave Castro’s dungeon.<br /><br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123189390011979489.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">From the Wall Street Journal</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><div align="justify">…<br />Like many young Cubans, 23-year-old Yosniel Castro wants an opportunity to leave this Communist-ruled island for a better life. Unlike many of his peers, he may have found a way out: Judaism.<br />…<br />The journey from Havana to Jerusalem, however, isn't easy. The process of converting to Judaism takes years and includes being approved by a council of elders at the synagogue and then an ordained rabbi. Since Cuba has none, usually converts have to wait for a visiting rabbi from Israel, Argentina or Chile. Last but not least, male converts have to submit to a ritual circumcision. In 2007, dozens of adult Cuban men underwent circumcision as part of their conversion process.<br />…<br />Since 1992, Bet Shalom has had a rotating troupe of mentors from Argentina, often rabbinical students, who usually commit to a two-year stint, instructing younger members of the congregation as well as conversos. The latest mentor, Fernando Lapiduz, hails from Rosario, in Argentina's grain belt.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span><br />In 2007, his first year in Havana, Mr. Lapiduz converted 71 Jews, including nearly two dozen adult men. They were required to submit to ritual circumcision by an ordained mohel whom Mr. Lapiduz imported from Argentina. "He did them all in one week," says Mr. Lapiduz proudly.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span><br />Mr. Zabicki was lucky -- he was circumcised in Mexico a week after his birth. "For those older guys...Well, it was a pretty complicated operation," he says with a grimace.</div></blockquote><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span><br />A complicated operation and an ironic situation to say the least.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.<br /></span>While Castro’s role model, Hitler, was persecuting, incarcerating and slaughtering Jews in Europe, many Jews either converted to or pretended to be Christian in order to escape the his concentration camps. </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span><br />And now in Cuba people convert to Judaism in order to escape Castro’s island concentration camp.<br /><br /> </div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-87344610810528821952009-01-14T20:16:00.000-05:002009-01-14T20:16:01.406-05:00Some Socialists Are Better Than Others<div align="justify">I’ve got a wound in my soul. It’s called Elian.<br /><br />I know its never going to heal, but it doesn’t hurt as much as when I was injured.<br /><br />Elian was every Cuban. We were all a scared refugee at some point saved from the jaws of the sharks. Some figuratively, others all too literally.<br /><br />I’m glad they didn’t throw me back into the shark tank, but would they have? Would they have been that blind, that cruel?<br /><br />Obviously yes.<br /><br />When the people, the system, the society you look up to let you down by doing something immoral it hurts, especially if they hurt a child in the process.<br /><br />The mantra back in ‘00 was that “the boy belonged with his father.”<br /><br />No argument, no explanation, no anecdote, no picture, no nothing could convince some people that to send a child back to some parents was child abuse. It was my hatred of Fidel blinding me. I could not see.<br /><br />Indoctrinating a child into a cult of hate, lies and immorality even with their parent’s consent doesn’t make it right. It is still child abuse. Especially in a totalitarian country where everyone belongs to the state and Papa Fidel has parental rights over all the children, their parents and their pet dogs. Even in the child-welfare community where I worked at the time, this logic was rejected in favor of the “the boy belongs with his father” bumper sticker rationale.<br /><br />So now I read that Adolf Hitler, the birthday cake boy from Jersey, has been taken away from his neo-nazi parents by the State. It seems that naming a child Adolph Hitler is considered child abuse or is it the environment of hate that the parents are instilling in this child that’s considered child abuse by the Garden State?<br /><br />Now I’m confused. I thought children belonged with their parents.<br /><br />Maybe Cuban children are to be measured by a different yardstick than the lily white supremacists?<br /><br />What’s also troubling is that no ShopRite bakery employee would have batted an eyelash if it had been a birthday cake for a kid named Che or Fidel Castro or Mao Zedung or Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin. Much less would NJ’s DYFS have taken any child named after a communist away from their parents because of the environment of hate that the children may be exposed to in a communist household could be considered child abuse.<br /><br />The same crowd that defends socialism and the communist murderers who have been responsible for the deaths of 100,000,000 people in socialist states, have turned on one of their own: Adolph Hitler.<br /><br />Hitler is the pariah even though his body count is considerably less than Stalin’s or Mao’s. Nazis, you see, are far right, the opposite of a communist-or so they would have you believe.<br /><br />But Hitler was one of them, a socialist. "Nazi" was an abbreviation for "der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiters Partei —the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Clearly in Nazi Germany, the individual interests were subjugated for the common good and Hitler and his thugs ran the German economy by deciding what would be produced at what price, etc. In a word: Socialism.<br /><br />I guess some socialists are better than others.<br /></div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-76300609489840925822009-01-14T12:49:00.000-05:002009-01-14T14:51:24.526-05:00The RerunThe show is about to start.<br /><br />The rerun.<br /><br />They should call this movie Déjà vu … They should call this movie Déjà vu … They should call this movie Déjà vu …<br /><br /><br />They’re setting the stage and props, going over security. You know, the usual.<br /><br />Fidel’s demise is the talk of the media. And yet it seems that in the place that would welcome that news the most the news, Miami, it’s being received with a shrug and a smile. And as much as the media would like to see Cuban youths banging on pots on the street, by chumming the waters, it just doesn’t seem to be happening.<br /><br />My kids will probably celebrate Fidel’s death because they think that it will probably mark the end of the dinner time lectures on the evils of Fidel, communism, the left and baggy pants. Yes, baggy pants are a communist plot.<br /><br />Dr. Mario thinks that they might make the announcement on the 20th to compete with Obama.<br /><br />I think that once Chilean President Bachalet arrives in Cuba, she will get her chance to kiss Castro’s colostomy bag in front of the cameras. And the regime will have fooled those gusanos in Miami on last time.<br /><br />But that’s a rerun too. And the emotional response the second or third time you see the movie isn’t the same.<br /><br />And I've seen this movie before.Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-29327991457432795362009-01-13T19:13:00.000-05:002009-01-13T19:13:00.370-05:00Fading<div align="justify">Apparently Fidel Castro hasn’t reflected on anything since December 15. And he hasn’t been reflected in a camera lens for even longer.<br /><br />And not too many people have noticed.<br /><br />I think if Hugo Chavez hadn’t opened his mouth about the world never being able to see Fidel walking around the countryside in his uniform again, no one would have really noticed.<br /><br />I certainly didn’t. I did find it odd that his half brother Raúl was traveling around Latin America for the first time since he took over and there weren’t any comments from the colostomy gallery.<br /><br />But now the speculation about his health and mortality are staring up again.<br /><br />It’s amazing to see how much Fidel’s star has faded since he took ill.<br /><br />Unlike his pal Che, who died young, his star burning out fast and bright, Fidel’s is fading.<br /><br />Which of course reminds of……</div><div align="center"><br /><br />My my, hey hey</div><div align="center">Rock and roll is here to stay</div><div align="center">It's better to burn out</div><div align="center">Than to fade away</div><div align="center">My my, hey hey.</div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center">Out of the blue and into the black</div><div align="center">They give you this, </div><div align="center">but you pay for that</div><div align="center">And once you're gone, </div><div align="center">you can never come back</div><div align="center">When you're out of the blue </div><div align="center">and into the black.</div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center">The king is gone but he's not forgotten</div><div align="center">This is the story of a johnny rotten</div><div align="center">It's better to burn out than it is to rust</div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center">The king is gone but he's not forgotten.</div><div align="center">Hey hey, my my</div><div align="center">Rock and roll can never die</div><div align="center">There's more to the picture</div><div align="center">Than meets the eye.</div><div align="center">Hey hey, my my.<br /> </div><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Seb0ay0ccF4&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Seb0ay0ccF4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-52242014611331661612009-01-12T19:45:00.000-05:002009-01-12T19:45:01.292-05:00<div align="justify">I had a few good head scratchers last week. No, no tengo piojos.<br /><br />Cubans are now allowed to <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Cuba_to_allow_construction_of_private_homes_Raul_Castro/articleshow/3935412.cms">build shelters</a> to protect themselves from the elements.<br /><br />Now, if I were a cynic, I would say that what is really going on here is that the regime sees a money making opportunity. They can take all the construction material donations sent in from foreign countries after the hurricanes and sell them to Cubans at Castro Depot who will pay for them with the $300 a month they get from tia Cuca in Hialeah now and the even more they will get later when President Obama opens up the remittance faucet, as promised, once he takes office.<br /><br />Or I could say that the regime has finally come to grips with the abject failure of their policies and are giving up trying to provide housing for the Cuban people-as if they ever intended to.<br /><br />Or I could say that all that building “your little home with whatever you can” is just going to exacerbate Cuba’s third world status by turning it into one big giant shanty town.<br /><br />But that’s not the kind of guy I am. I’m not that deep.<br /><br />What I can’t get past is how the media reports the news without admitting just how enslaved Cubans are.<br /><br />Not only that, they make it sound like allowing humans to build a structure to shelter themselves from the elements with their own money is some kind of grandiose gesture of magnanimous compassion by Generalissimo Raúl Castro!</div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-34365941634573407572009-01-11T22:26:00.000-05:002009-01-12T09:27:41.890-05:00Revolt<div align="justify">So I had a pretty hectic week and though I couldn’t update the blog, I was able to keep up with the “50th Anniversary” of the Revolution through news alert and Babalú.<br /><br />At what point is a revolution over, anyway? Once you establish a new “order” the revolution is done-over. But they don’t celebrate that moment in Cuba, they celebrate a perpetual revolution that has struggled for 50 years to establish a new order and still hasn’t. I guess because they’re still revolting and according to Generalisimo Raúl they plan to continue revolting for at least another 50 years. Are they revolting against themselves or just revolting for the sake of revolt? I would argue that they are celebrating a perpetual failure, and although it sounds like I may be nit picking the semantics, a matter of linguistics, that is how they win the argument by dictating the words.<br /><br />At the stroke of midnight every year, I usually revolt everyone by saying “another year down the tubes”. I say that because of the revolt in Cuba in 1959. This year I said “50 years down the tubes” bracing myself for the barrage of revolting hoopla, celebrations and parades.<br /><br />Surprisingly, the celebrations on the island were pretty moot even by revolting revolutionary standards. I was more like a wake where nobody really liked the stiff. Let us pray.<br /><br />The international free press, though, had to play homage to the revolting mythical barbudos who brought free education and healthcare to an island, that as they tell it, had one hospital, two schools, a million casinos and a million and one brothels-all run by mobsters and about 250 rich guys, who by the looks of it, owned about 500 ’57 Chevys apiece. That’s why it has taken 50 years to teach everyone how to read and write and set up a state-run HMO-that, and the embargo.<br /><br />In next fifty years of revolt we will probably see the reintroduction of toilet paper into Cuban society.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify">Talk about fifty years down the tubes!<br /> </div>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-1152206503942408082009-01-01T22:55:00.006-05:002009-01-01T23:42:09.887-05:00Miami 2009*So last night, or rather early this morning, I was walking home from a neighbor's house and there were a few house parties still going on.<br /><br />From somewhere in the dark, came an old melody that made us feel alright-an old Billy Joel song I hadn’t heard in <em>years</em>…<br /><br />It was the song about the lights going out on Broadway. Only, I knew that’s not the name of the song. We knew it had a name that had nothing to do with the lyrics but couldn’t think of it.<br /><br />I remembered to look it up tonight (What did we ever do before Google?).The name of the song is <em><a href="http://www.billyjoel.com/music/the-stranger-legacy-edition/miami-2017-seen-the-lights-go-out-on-broadway-live">Miami 2017</a></em>. That’s only a few miles and 8 years away.<br /><br />And so here’s the last stanza <em>Miami 2017</em>-with an asterisk like Happy New Year* because it reminds me of Cuba and because I changed one of the words,<br /><br />Miami 2017*<br /><br />...You know those lights were bright on El Malecon<br />That was so many years ago<br />Before we all lived here in Florida<br />Before the Mafia took over Mexico<br />There are not many who rememberT<br />hey say a handful still survive<br />To tell the world about<br />The way the lights went out<br />And keep the memory alive...<br /><br />Billy Singing in concert with great pictures of The City:<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MDXLyczUMoE&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MDXLyczUMoE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-66534013828279596262008-12-08T20:54:00.004-05:002008-12-12T16:14:08.135-05:00Embargo Schmargo<div align="justify">The chorus is deafening and in surround sound.<br /><br />End the Embargo. Stop isolating Cuba. Now!<br /><br />Well, on January 21.<br /><br />The basic thrust of the end the embargo argument is that it hasn’t worked and that flooding the island with tourists and dollars will bring about freedom.<br /><br />You see, according to this theory, the Cubans on the island are too stupid and brainwashed to know what freedom is. Their little Hispanic third world minds cannot understand such an advanced abstract concept. All the lives lost by Cubans either trying to achieve personal or national freedom must have been coincidences.<br /><br />Material things like hard currency, fancy personal electronics and designer clothes- those are the kind of things that Cubans can understand and once they are exposed to these things through contact with Americans tourists who are visiting the land that the 20th century forgot so they can witness some primitives eek out an existence in quaint misery or take advantage of dark skinned, half starved teenager, they will demand them and the regime will crumble like a 50 year old fortune cookie.<br /><br />Please!<br /><br />I propose, that maybe, Cubans on the island, since they don’t have freedom, are the ones that actually understand and cherish a concept that is an abstract idea to those that have never, thank God, had to do with out it- to those that think that freedom is freedom to choose between Merlot and Pinot Noir, between a regular latte or a decaf latte or which island to get wasted on.<br /><br />The “embargo” is not responsible with the suffering and the poverty that the Cuban people have been forced to endure. The TOTALITARIAN Castro regime is. The Castros are evil. They keep the Cubans hungry and destitute in order to control them.<br /><br />Giving the regime credit and funds will only allow them to buy more up to date repression gear at the Tyrants Я Us mega store.<br /><br />What is wrong in Cuba isn’t the Cuban people it is the regime. You don’t need to expose Cubans to anything in order for them to raise their social awareness. They know exactly what they are missing<br /><br />When the regime in South Africa was broken, the world came together to choke that regime out of existence.<br /><br />So why is it that when it comes to Cuba, that proven approach isn’t replicated?<br /><br />Any tyranny is a minority rule, like South Africa had.<br /><br />In Cuba’s case, however, its leader is world-renown for surviving ten US presidents while being an annoying thorn on their side. Because of this, he is idolized and revered by the international left. And so Cuba’s Anti-Yankee revolution must be preserved at all costs-even if the price is 50 more years of Cuban sweat, blood and tears.<br /><br />And that’s just not me ranting, it’s exactly Raúl Castro has responded to his big brother’s statement that Cuba “could” talk to a President Obama and the ensuing orgasmic echoes of approval from all parts of the supposedly civilized world.<br /><br /><blockquote>"we have learned to resist for half a century, and we are prepared to fight for Eanother half century."<br /></blockquote><br />That means in the Cuban Regime’s Newspeak that they will continue to hold the Cuban people hostage for as long as they are in power. The Regime isn’t interested in improving the lives of the Cuban people, but only in imposing its will, by force, on the Cuban people for as long as possible.<br /><br />The only thing that easing the embargo and cozying up to the Cuban tyranny is going to accomplish is to perpetuate the oppression and violation of Human Rights for at least another generation.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Oh MY!</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">My bud, TEP, with another perpective:</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><a onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/11086622685927000217" rel="nofollow">Tomás Estrada-Palma</a> said...<br /></div><blockquote><div align="justify">The embargo is a moot point if you have no money. Castro uses "embargo" as an excuse and will do anything to keep it in place. Exiles fear dropping the embargo will save the regime and argue that it will have to mean taxpayer backed credit for Castro.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">It doesn't have to be that way. Make a grand announcement that the embargo is lifted but no credit will be available to the regime until all debt is paid by the thieves in power. Here would be the results:</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">1. There is no credit available for honest individuals outside of Cuba.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">2. Castro would lose the last leg keeping him standing - that it is the embargo making Cuba poor.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">3. Castro has no cash and could not buy one penny more than he already buys right now under the embargo. What kind of embargo allows food and medicine? With that kind of thinking we'd still be fighting the Trojan War.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">4. Cuba has very little to sell and that would be exacerbated by the worldwide commodity price deflation. Their commie production model is toast in this market loaded with stuff nobody is buying now anyway.</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify">Unfortunately, only Castro and Tomas Estrada-Palma understand we are in an information war. If you think you are a good information warrior ask yourself this:</div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Have you ever said "I don't care what people think. I say the embargo stays." If you have you are shooting information arrows while Castro is lobbing information grenades into our front lines.</div></blockquote>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-64122476015494479892008-12-04T22:35:00.009-05:002008-12-05T12:10:48.543-05:00The Cuban "Race"<p class="MsoNormal">I remember sitting in Ms. Ryman’s homeroom in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place><st1:placename>Union</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Hill</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype>High School</st1:placetype></st1:place> one morning and having to fill out some kind of a form that asked what race I was. One race was white, another black, another “Hispanic” and so on.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">That day, I realized that we Cubans were no longer white. All of us Cubans complained that just because we spoke Spanish, it didn’t mean that we weren’t white. Some of us where some of us weren’t, but “Hispanic” wasn’t a race, it was a language. Whatever. Cuban became my race that day. The best story that day was the confusion on the teachers face when a Chinese Cuban asked what she should put down.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">So a few days ago, I get an e-mail from an Obamaniac acquaintance about an <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/791191.html">article</a> in The Miami Herald by a Cuban author, Dr. Carlos Moore who believes that the Cuban regime is quaking in its boots because the newly elected President of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> is black.</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276145247185941922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 212px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/STiiJeniNaI/AAAAAAAABgk/6rCtshlYk3M/s320/FOTOPICHON%255B2%255D.jpg" border="0" /></o:p></p><p align="center"><span style="color:#000099;">Dr. Carlos Moore-Cuban</span><br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Not only that, but when Mr. Obama makes good on rescinding the Bush restrictions on travel and remittances, the pressure put on the regime by the now black population, might just bring the regime crumbling down.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, I’m not going to argue with Dr. Moore that blacks in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> have it worst that the whites. I have been pointing that out for years. And one can’t argue that people of color throughout the world have been empowered by Obama’s election either. They have.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">But will take issue with some of his points, Cuban to Cuban.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">For example, Dr. Moore claims that the worst problem of the revolution is racism.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">The bottom line is that racism is <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s most intractable problem.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><br />That’s funny, I was under the impression that the worst problem Cuban have is that they're being opressed by a totalitarian regime. Would things be any better if the darker Cubans were being repressed just as bad as lighter Cubans? Forget that <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> has been stuck in the fifties for fifty years. In <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, where blacks weren’t even allowed to sit alongside of whites in the restaurants in some areas, a non white has been elected president. Why? Because of democracy.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Had <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> remained a democratic republic like it was before Batista took it over, who knows what kind of advances in terms of race, it would have achieved. Contrary to Dr. Moore’s assertions, <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> was not “segregated”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">And it really serves no purpose to decry the historical exiles as bigots:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify">Many, especially the younger generation, have forsaken the racial bigotry of their parents and evinced a growing awareness that the predominantly white face (85 percent) of the Cuban-American community is a political liability in a <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> that is predominantly black.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><br />I have never in the many years I have been exiled heard any Cuban exile blame blacks for the revolution’s success or claim that the only reason that the regime is still in power is because it has the support of the majority of the non-white population.</p>Is it then fair to equate the Miami Cubans with Castro? Castro has had TOTAL control over Cuban society for 50 years. The prejudices that Cubans may have had 50 years have no bearing on reality today or are they the cause of the suffering of non-white Cubans under Fidel.<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I really think that in his article, Dr.Moore, does a disservice to “our” race by throwing all exiles under the bus as “bigots”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Coño.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>Dr. Moore should remember that here in the <st1:country-region><st1:place>US</st1:place></st1:country-region> none of us are considered white. If the post Obama <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> can move into a post racial era, it should be a cinch for us Cubans to do the same, even he could do it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">That said, it is important for Dr. Moore to continue to educate black <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> as to the economic apartheid and racism that the majority of non-white Cubans are forced to endure in addition to the run of the mill totalitarian oppression.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It is important to point out Fidel Castro’s bigotry, (as opposed to the prejudices of the 1950’s Cuban society), to all the black Americans who see Fidel as a sympathetic figure and his revolution as a model for social equality.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It is also important to tell the world that 85% of the incarcerated men in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> are not white. And although these men are considered common criminals, the economic conditions that caused them to turn to a life a crime to survive are political and caused by an illegitimate, corrupt and incompetent regime.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">And it is imperative that blacks in <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> understand that many of the leading, bravest and most oppressed dissidents are what in <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> would be considered black, but are Cuban.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">With respected black scholars like Dr. Moore telling the truth about Castro’s revolution, with the help of American civil rights leaders, like the Reverend Al Sharpton who is now advocating for black Cuban prisoners of conscience like Dr. Biscet, Castro and his thugs will lose a strong base of support within the USA-black <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">If their efforts are reinforced by President Obama the mask of the Cuban revolution’s racial equality might finally be taken off-once and for all.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Truthfully, I was ready to dismiss Dr. Moore’s theory asm well, racist, but in reading<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>another article by non other than Guillermo Fariñas Hernández entitled <a href="http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/guillermo-farinas-hernandez-29.htm">“Thankful for Obama’s Arrival”</a>, I had to reassess my position.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276145972772702914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 239px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/STiizto5isI/AAAAAAAABgs/LEItpegKsXc/s320/340x.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="center"> <span style="color:#000099;">Guillermo Fariñas Hernández</span> - <span style="color:#000099;">Cuban<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">According to Fariñas, since Obama was elected, the old myth that <st1:country-region><st1:place>Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> was the model for a post racist society and the <st1:country-region><st1:place>US</st1:place></st1:country-region> was inherently a racist country, has been shattered. This has forced the regime to revisit the economic apartheid that kept Cuban blacks from getting the better jobs-those with access to hard currency-and they have decreed that 40% of the employees that work in the hard currency stores, the “shoppings”, be non-whites.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Fariñas claims that the non-whites know that they don’t owe their jobs to the revolution, but to President-Elect Obama.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Amazing!</p><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"></p>Gusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32424382.post-71425058748294862922008-12-04T07:49:00.008-05:002008-12-04T17:08:44.172-05:00Lighting A Candle......To The Ones We Can't Hold A Candle To.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275978003423209298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 340px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mzEMPgOqey4/STgKCnDQp1I/AAAAAAAABgU/O-OFMPYJ6XM/s400/cran1-12_Martyr_St-Barbara.jpg" border="0" /><br />I haven’t posted anything in a long time.<br /><br />I haven’t really had anything to say, or, better said, I haven’t had anything to say that I thought anyone would want to read.<br /><br />Not that this is worth reading or anything, but I thought I’d try something more personal to get back into the swing of things…<br /><br />…Today is Saint Barbara’s feast day- a Cuban holiday of sorts.<br /><br />I was going to light a candle and wait till midnight. The Saint Barbara vigil-“esperar a Santa Bárbara.”<br /><br />I was sitting in the dark thinking about this Cuban custom and about the many December 3rds in my past when I had gone to parties to “wait for Saint Barbara.”<br /><br />At one point in my life, I thought the tradition was primitive, pagan and<em> so</em> third world religiously superstitious. Now, it has become a cultured and a rich, sophisticated Cuban eccentricity. The Cuban people have progressed a lot in twenty years.<br /><br />Anyway, I was sitting there thinking about the Cuban devotion to this Christian martyr and why the attraction.<br /><br />I don’t know if I was asleep or dozing off or what, but I had a weird stream of consciousness flowing.<br /><br />I was looking at the red Santa Bárbara velón that we had bought to use as a hurricane candle. Now, at the risk of being accused of “nada mas acordarme de Santa Bárbara cuando truena,” (only thinking of Saint Barabara when it thunders- a Cardinal Cuban Sin), there IS no better time to light a candle to Santa Bárbara then when you’re in the middle of a thunderstorm or hurricane and the power goes out. A modern mixture of practicality and <s>third world religious superstitiousness</s> and rich cultural eccentricity.<br /><br />The candle was red- Santa Bárbara’s color. I thought of Cuban women wearing red on Dec. 4th. Then, came the association of red with communism and why I don’t like red.<br /><br />And so in the cool, quiet dark as I lingered between reality and a dream, the red candle became Cuba and the tower at the foot of the virgin was “El morro.”<br /><br />Saint Barbara was the captive Cuba, isolated from the rest of the world, tortured by a tyrannical father because she had chosen the truth and the light over pagan Godlessness.<br /><br />Santa Bárbara, rebellious, had miraculously escaped the tower where her father locked her up for her beliefs just like many Cubans who were locked up in La Cabaña, next to the tower of El Morro. And she was persecuted and martyred for intransigently clinging to her principles.<br /><br />And as I drifted further from reality, Santa Bárbara was there, sword in hand, only she had Yoani Sanchez’s face with her haunting dark eyes and Cuban Mona Lisa smile and she stood in front of El Morro with a tear running down her face.<br /><br />I suddenly was startled back to the reality I had drifted from by my nodding head, and for a fleeting instant it was all so crystal clear- Santa Bárbara, Cuba and our devotion to red clad, sword wielding rebels. It was all so crystal clear until I drifted off again.<br /><br />Like the Apostles in the garden of Gethsemane, I had been too weak to stay awake and light the candle for Santa Bárbara and Cuba and Yoani and the many that have been martyred for their beliefs-those that I could never hold a candle to.<br /><br />This morning, imprisoned in three dimensions, my mind cannot make the connections and associations and the once crystal clear revelation is more like a foggy hallucination. But, it is clear that I should light that candle in admiration.<br /><br />Coincidently, while looking for a picture of Santa Bárbara to go along with this meditation, I found I wasn’t the only son of a son of a sailor who’s mind had associated Santa Bárbara with freedom, exile…and a salty piece of land.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4CXyp39IghA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4CXyp39IghA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><strong>A Salty Piece Of Land ------Jimmy Buffett</strong><br /><br />I was listening for answers<br />That I could not really hear<br />When the words of a wise old Indian<br />Put a conch shell to my ear<br /><br />And I took off for the ocean<br />I was searching for the coast<br />Painting pictures of my vision<br />With the words from grandma ghost<br /><br />Hiding from the dragons<br />Riding for the sea<br />Singing ballads from my childhood<br />“A pirate’s life for me”<br /><br />Survivors seem to function best<br />When peril is at hand<br />With a song of the ocean<br />Meets a salty piece of land<br /><br />I was force-fed my religion<br />But I somehow saved my smile<br />Tapped into my instincts<br />As I headed to’ards exile<br /><br />Cleopatra did not own a barge<br />But a schooner was her home<br />She has centuries of stories<br />And there’s wisdom in her bones<br /><br />She was on a sacred mission<br />And she told me of a place<br />Where a man can hide forever<br />But never loose his face<br /><br />So I saddled up my seahorse<br />With a fly-rod in my hand<br />I was not looking for salvation<br />Just a salty piece of land<br /><br />Somedays Cayo Loco SHIMMERS<br />Like the stars up in the sky<br />And the seabirds they do touch and gos<br />As the world just tangos by<br /><br />But there are times when she is hidden<br />Beneath the wild and crashing waves<br />And <strong>the patron saint of lightening</strong><br />Keeps the sailors from their graves<br /><br />Some say it is a blinding sword<br />Pointing out into the sea<br />While others say her guiding light<br />Leads to’ards eternity<br /><br />Still I sit in contemplation<br />And I just don’t understand<br />This mysterious attraction<br />Of this salty piece of land<br /><br />Still I search the constellations<br />And the tiny grains of sand<br />Where the song of the ocean<br />Meets the salty piece of landGusanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09338808907114840043noreply@blogger.com2